Jesus finishes His letters to the Seven Local Churches by writing a stinging indictment of the Church in the town of Laodicea. This was the Church of the 1%. The town of Laodicea and the Christian Church were incredibly wealthy. Laodicea was a city of professionals: physicians, bankers and business owners. Their problem wasn't the wealth, but rather the self-reliant attitude that came with their material success.
Laodicea was so wealthy that they turned down Rome's offer of financial support to rebuild after the great earthquake of 60AD. Laodicea was so wealthy that they didn't need Rome and in the same way the Christian Church in Laodicea had so much materially -that they didn't need Jesus!
Jesus found himself on the outside of His Church, knocking on the doors hoping to be let in. The image of Jesus being kept outside of His Church is one that we need to remember.
The question that all Christians need to ask is: 'Are we like the Church in Laodicea?' Do we have so much that we have failed to trust in Christ? Has our material success caused us to only go to Jesus when things fall apart? Is He on the outside of our Church, banging on the door, hoping to be let in?
I'm convinced that the Holy Spirit knows what He is doing. For the past 2000 years the Holy Spirit has been active in guiding and convicting and challenging us to grow deeper in our relationship with Christ. May the Holy Spirit continue to guide and direct His Church!
What questions or comments about Laodicea do you have? Leave them in the comments section and let's continue our journey through Revelations!
1 comment:
Hmmm, interesting, are we like the church at Laodicea? Affluence certainly has a way of diminishing our need for God, for other people. (And apparently this is something eternally true.) My thought would be that as a church, aligning ourselves to Scripture would lessen our likelihood that we would wander into dangerous places that leave Jesus on the outside of our church door. A personal prayer point that I use is to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal those areas of my life that I fall short that I may be unaware of or those areas I am unwilling to surrender. I get a lot of challenging answers doing that.
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